Mission: Cavanaugh Baby. Marie Ferrarella

it.”

      Don’t worry, I don’t intend to do it more than once, she silently told him, keeping her arms wrapped around the terrier to afford the animal as much of a feeling of security as she could.

      Too bad the terrier couldn’t return the favor, she thought. She was definitely out of her element down here.

      “Turn there,” Shane instructed. “To your left,” he added when she all but missed the small door that was on that side.

      Grudgingly following his instruction, Ashley walked into the lab.

      Unlike the corridor she’d just been down, the large rectangular room, outfitted with a myriad of strange-looking equipment and devices, was extremely well lit. All shadows had been summarily banished from this part of the basement.

      Hearing a commotion behind her, the young woman in the lab coat turned from a mysterious machine she’d just inserted a test tube into.

      Her serious expression instantly melted when she saw Shane. “Hi, Shane, what brings you here to my part of the world?” Her glance took in the dog as well as the young woman holding the animal. “And you brought me a visitor. Two,” she amended, looking at the terrier. Her eyes rose to meet the woman’s. “Hi, I’m Destiny Richardson,” she said, introducing herself.

      Of course you are, Ashley thought, offering a perfunctory smile.

      It figured that he would have a girlfriend named Destiny, she couldn’t help thinking as she watched the two of them interact. The lab technician probably fit right in with girls who had names like Bambi and Tiffany. Ashley was willing to bet those belonged to two more of his girlfriends.

      “Ashley St. James,” Ashley told the lab technician in response.

      “And your friend?” Destiny asked, removing one latex glove to pet the terrier the officer was holding.

      To Ashley’s surprise, the terrier didn’t instantly begin barking. Instead he allowed himself to be petted by this woman. He even seemed to like it, she realized. The woman went up several notches in her estimation. Maybe she wasn’t just a bimbo after all.

      “Albert,” Ashley replied, then commented, “He seems to like you.”

      “Everyone likes Destiny,” Shane interjected.

      Destiny laughed softly. “That’s only because I’m a lot happier these days than I used to be,” she told Ashley modestly.

      Next the woman would be batting her eyes at Cavanaugh and saying he was the reason behind the changes in her life, Ashley guessed.

      It took everything she had not to just roll her eyes—or get nauseous. Had he come down here to guide her the way he’d claimed, or to flaunt one of his girlfriends at her?

      As if she cared, Ashley thought.

      “Maybe I should come back later?” she suggested. “Give you and...Destiny, is it—?” she asked, pretending not to have noted the technician’s name “—a little alone time together.”

      Destiny looked at her, clearly more confused than Shane appeared.

      “Why would we need any alone time together?” she questioned.

      Shane was the one who answered her rather than the woman who’d initially made the offer. “I think that’s the officer’s quaint way of saying she thinks we’re in a relationship.”

      Ashley scowled at Cavanaugh for the cavalier way he’d just volunteered her guess. He really did tick her off, and if anything, his good looks just seemed to intensify her annoyance.

      But that slipped into the background the next moment when the sound of the lab technician’s laughter told Ashley that maybe she’d made a mistake.